Perhaps the 2013 Mets Won't Utterly Suck?

Lots of baseball news today! Much, but not all, of it is sort of bad from a Mets fan's perspective. Scott Hairston signed with the Chicago Cubs, on a very reasonable deal covering 2 years for $6 million. He'd've been a very nice addition to our outfield as a platoon player/pinch-hitter, since we have no right-handed outfielders. The Atlanta Braves, meanwhile, have pulled off a trade for Justin Upton, giving them an outfield consisting of J. Upton, B.J. Upton, and Jason Heyward. J's all around! Now, it was probably a bad trade, i.e. they gave up too much (namely Martin Prado, their presumptive third baseman, who'll be replaced by a platoon of bad hitters, and Randall Delgado, a top pitching prospect, among others). Still, it will probably make the 2013 Braves marginally tougher.

However, the Mets have made a couple of interesting moves and/or rumblings today that make me think they're not giving up on this season. First, they signed Shaun Marcum. This is a move that, in my opinion, makes zero sense if the front office isn't trying to put together a contender this year. The Mets have half a dozen young pitchers, any one of whom might turn out to be a good Major League starter. If they're playing 2013 for the future, let Mejia and Hefner and McHugh and the like spend the season revolving through that fifth starter's spot. Eventually Zack Wheeler will come up, and either replace an injured/traded Santana or solidify the fifth rotation spot. If, on the other hand, the Mets have ambitions of not sucking this year, getting Marcum makes perfect sense: it gives the Mets someone they know is a pretty solid pitcher at all five spots, and makes all of their young unproven types into pure injury depth for this season. Plus, if things don't go well it gives them an extra piece to be flipped mid-season. So, signing Marcum says to me, albeit not that definitively, that Sandy thinks this team might not suck.

The other intriguing thing about the Mets is that they are said to be asking for protection for their first-round draft pick. The top 10 picks are protected, and the Mets had the 10th-worst record in baseball last year, so they should have protection, but because the Pirates didn't sign their top pick last year, they're getting a compensation pick a few turns ahead of the Mets. That seems to mean that if the Mets sign one of the free agents who's tied to draft compensation, i.e. who was made and declined a qualifying offer, they'll lose that 11th pick, which would be bad. They're asking the league to rule, essentially, that they don't lose their protection just because the Pirates get their extra pick. Now, why bother asking if you don't plan on signing one of those compensation-linked free agents? And the only such person who even remotely makes sense to think about is center fielder Michael Bourn.

Signing Bourn, on top of signing Marcum, could go an awfully long way toward making this a competitive team. Bourn would provide Gold Glove defense in center field, which would be really useful given the presence of first-baseman-if-he's-lucky Lucas Duda in left field. It would allow Kirk Nieuwenhuis to shift over to right field, probably in a platoon with the likes of Collin Cowgill, and keep Mike Baxter firmly on the bench where he belongs (replacing Lucas Duda late in every game the Mets are leading). It would give the Mets a bona-fide leadoff hitter, one who's averaged a .348 on-base percentage and 54 stolen bases over the last four seasons. It would let Ruben Tejada stop leading off, which he's not suited for, and become a second/eighth guy. What it wouldn't do would be give the Mets a right-handed outfielder, which is why signing Hairston would have been nice. Still, the Mets could probably have a lineup that would look like Bourn/Murphy/Wright/Davis/Duda/Nieuwenhuis/d'Arnaud/Tejada, maybe swapping Cowgill in for Nieuwenhuis against lefties and hopefully with d'Arnaud moving up as the season progressed.

 That's not a bad lineup, and would have the potential to be above-average at every spot in the order (with 5 and 6 presenting the biggest problem). The defense would only be a concern at one or two spots, LF and 2B. Combine that with a rotation of Santana/Niese/Harvey/Gee/Marcum, and enough live arms floating around to cobble together a not-horrible bullpen, and you've got a team that could very easily Not Suck. It will, therefore, be very interesting indeed to see whether the league grants Alderson his desired protection for that 11th pick, and then what Sandy does in the wake of that decision. Signing Bourn could instantly add five or six wins to the 2013 Mets, and that's a big enough difference that it just might make a difference.